


it's hard to communicate anything

by orphan_account



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But I Edited It, Drugs, M/M, References to Drugs, Swearing, TFB, Underage Smoking, anderperry, i fell asleep and dreamed this and wrote it down, i was trying to study for a test but i had a 105 degree fever nd, oh by the way i rly have no idea what the fuck the school is like but, ohh lmao, the front bottoms - Freeform, the original made no sense bcs i was literally hallucinating, this is based off of a fever dream i had on a plane, whatever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 15:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10363878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Todd was going to die. Todd was actually going to die, and it was all Charlie's fault. Charlie, primarily, but also the weed and game of truth or dare from the night before. Damn Neil for going to mandatory rehearsals!~OR the one where Todd is forced to speak in The Front Bottoms song lyrics and he hates his life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is like my first fic ever (or at least in a long time) so enjoy? and um give me feedback my tumblr is @tvents  
> T for swearing & drugs & shit

Todd was going to die. He hated the guys who had become his only friends within the past couple of months. This was it! He had finally made some friends and they were quite literally murdering him with embarrassment. He was dead and gone and his friends sucked. Great.  
The annihilation of had started the night before. It had begun, like most terrible things did, with his asshole friends smoking on the floor of his and Neil’s bedroom. He shuddered at the memory.  
“Todd, truth or dare?” Charlie had asked out of nowhere. He was obviously on his way to being high, though that could be put up for debate - Charlie acted like a 11 year old girl most of the time, pot just occasionally brought that out in him more than usual. A million thoughts flashed through Todd’s head in under a second - of course Charlie would start a game like this, of course they would all enthusiastically agree (there was a reason they were friends with Charlie, obviously), of course Todd would be the first target. Because the universe and Charlie hated him. Obviously.  
“No, thank you,” he had replied, smiling slightly, repressing the urge to say something along the lines of “I’m not going to go around embarrassing myself like you idiots do on a daily basis," but also trying to convey that in his facial expression and passive aggressive tone. How was he supposed to resist, when Charlie was such a ridiculous asshole and Neil, who was caused like 80% of his actual kind behavior, was conspicuously missing (it wasn't conspicuous at all, he was at rehearsal, but still. Todd had to find some way to justify his known ridiculousness).  
Charlie pouted, over exaggerating his emotions in a way typical to him that Todd had toughened himself to since he had met the ridiculous boy. “But Todd,” he whined, stretching out the O sound and flopping down into a stretched out, lying down position on the floor. “Don’t be a spoilsport,” he continued to unnecessarily draw out vowels as the other boys (except for Knox, who just watched in amusement) joined him, flopping and whining like fish.  
“Fine, anything to stop that racket,” Todd eventually gave in. “Dare,” he said, figuring it would be safer than “truth” because out of all the things these boys didn’t know about him, the fact that he had a crush on their conveniently (yes, Todd knew that it wasn't exactly convenient, particularly for said friend, but) currently absent close friend and his roommate was more damning than anything Charlie could condemn him to. He hoped.  
“I have a good one! Guys I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon, get ready,” he began excitedly (because he was Charlie. Was any other explanation necessary? Of course he would be thinking about exactly what to dare Todd for hours on end. Most likely to get out of classwork). “I dare you, Todd Anderson, to only speak in The Front Bottoms lyrics all day. Starting now, ending midnight tomorrow. I guess that’s more than a day, but whatever. It’s your turn now!” He said, smiling innocently and giving Todd a second to process this.  
“Wait, you don’t mean now now, because I have to get my revenge - I mean, truth or dare someone, cough cough fuck off Charlie, and you wouldn’t want to jeopardise that, would you?” He said, feigning innocence as the other boy laughingly agreed that he did not, in fact, have to dare anyone in song lyrics, but it was effective immediately after.  
“Alright, Charlie, truth or dare?” Todd asked before really thinking it through. He was not a courageous man, he didn’t have any… Damn it, that was AJJ, not The Front Bottoms. He was getting there, though. Kind of.  
“Dare,” Charlie responded without hesitation or fear. He did look slightly scared when Todd told him he would be spending all of the time Todd spent speaking song lyrics, speaking in a russian accent. He was a lucky fucking kid that he hadn't condemned Neil or someone to this fate. God only knew what shit he would be taking if that was the case. Todd wasn't particularly ruthless or aggressive, which sounds like it should be positive but wasn't in... a lot of ways.  
~  
Todd had almost forgotten when he’d woken up. He’d gone through his usual routine of getting about 3 hours of sleep and then waking up without being able to fall asleep again but he somehow felt less tired than usual despite the lingering reminder in his head that he was definitely forgetting something.  
It took him all of about 10 minutes to figure it out. When he finally remembered, he cursed under his breath and sat down at his desk (the one he’d gotten for his birthday for the past 4 or so years), opened his computer, and began to look through The Front Bottoms’ lyrics. "Well," he thought, staring at the dauntingly long list of songs, "at least you’ve got a lot to choose from."  
~  
By the time Neil woke up, Todd had researched and researched and, eventually, memorised what he thought would be an at least semi applicable list of phrases to get through the day. There was one problem he hadn’t accounted for, though, and that was Neil himself. As far as Todd knew, there were no Front Bottoms lyrics that mentioned “I have to speak in only The Front Bottoms’ lyrics today.” Maybe he should’ve looked closer, knowing this band as well as he did by that point, they probably did have something applicable  
“G’morning,” Neil said, rubbing sleep from his eyes.  
“Hey,” he began and then added, “Molly,” a little quieter, “How you doin’?” He could hear Charlie’s russian laugh from outside the door. Or so he liked to think, though he was pretty sure that the other boy was not purpousefully laughing in a russian accent because he was not ridiculous. Okay, not that ridiculous, at least.  
“Todd, are you okay?” Neil looked genuinely concerned and Todd wanted to bang his head into a wall (the lyrics that perfectly fit this situation were also in Molly. “What the fuck? How could this happen to me?” were really what he was feeling in that moment).  
“I’m doin’ fine, I feel alright, no I feel better than alright,” He said and cringed once more. Why in the world had Charlie subjected him to this torture? (He had later specified that Todd couldn’t pick and choose, he had to say entire lines. Which was worse than before - Todd had been planning to speak in stunted sentences of individual "TFB" words. God knew Charlie would be following him around like a goddamn puppy all day to make sure that didn't happen).  
“Are you sure? Because you’re talking weirdly and I’m about 90% sure you called me “Molly” back there,” Neil stated, brows furrowing. Jesus, why hadn’t Todd ever made Neil listen to his music? It had just been a coincidence that Todd was wearing a friend’s The Front Bottoms shirt to bed one night (not because he liked them that much, just because he thought it looked cool) and that had basically been the thing to cement his and Charlie’s friendship. Why couldn’t he have been roommates with Charlie, for that matter?  
There were so many things that could’ve made that situation better and none of them were going to happen, so Todd was left to awkwardly stutter out “I’ll be fine. Yeah I’ll be alright, alright, alright,” and listen to Charlie’s jubilant laughter. He was going to pay, and Todd was going to make it better than he already was - a russian fucking accent? How lame.  
“Is that Charlie? Does he have you on drugs or something?” Neil said, already opening the door. Todd, half listening to the conversation between an infinitely confused Neil and a terribly-accented Charlie and half trying to figure out what he was going to do, turned back to his computer where he of course had the song ‘Molly’ open. He needed to be pulling from more than one or two sources, damnit!  
It was at that moment Neil came back into the room and flopped, decidedly confused, onto Todd’s bed. Because it was a Saturday and Welton had become all “21st century, get with the times”, they didn’t have anything to do for a while, meaning Todd would have to try to hold a normal conversation without Neil thinking he was on drugs. Correction, without Neil thinking he was on more drugs than he already thought he was on. Damn this would be hard.  
That was when he realised the solution : just talk about drugs! There were plenty of lyrics about drugs and he could steer Neil away from questions he wouldn’t be able to answer or possible awkward confessions of love.  
“Everybody here is trippin’ some new drug except for me,” he tentatively offered up. It seemed to work rather well as Neil bolted up and looked at him with a mix of confusion, disbelief, and something between anger and worry.  
“What?” He asked, incredulous.  
“Everybody here is trippin’...” Todd began, only to be cut off.  
“No, I heard you, but I ask again : what?”  
“Um…” Todd fumbled hard, searching his memory. “Well, she was gettin’ high, yeah, she was smoking pot. And… uh, you’re trippin’ acid,” he thought that counted as a full lyric. He really didn’t want to have to say to Neil “and I’m tripping mushrooms,” so he just didn’t. “And, uh, she’s got some medicine, she’s choking on the pills. And,” at this point, he was fumbling, looking for more drugs lyrics not about pot. He decided on the next best one and made a phone gesture by his ear, and then air quotes with his hands, saying “You can call me when you sober up, let me know you’re still alive,” and smiled knowingly, praying to god that that would make up for it.  
It didn’t. Neil was looking at him like he was crazy. Eventually, he broke the silence and said, “So you’re telling me that there was a girl here who was smoking pot, because you said “she” was doing this but you also said “she” was choking on the pills, is she a drug dealer? And dude, don't even try to tell me you're not on drugs, I'm sitting here trying to piece together whatever the fuck you're saying and you're claiming that you're the only one not tripping?”  
He looked to Todd for confirmation and he only nodded mutely. “So then someone - you said “you” so you don’t want to tell me who - was tripping acid? And then either you were talking to this drug dealer girl and told her to call you when she sobers up or vice versa or someone else entirely, which one?” Todd mutely held up a number three. “Yeah, okay. Cool? Are you okay? You’re talking weirdly and you seem, I don’t know, just weird, really.”  
Todd searched for a response in his extensive inventory (really, it was good he had a great memory). “It’s hard to communicate anything,” he settled on, knowing it was very vague but simultaneously hoping it was enough for Neil.  
It wasn’t. “Aw, why?” he asked, seeming genuinely concerned. Damnit.  
“Can we talk about this later?” He said, planning on leaving it there until he heard Charlie outside of the door. Waiting for him to fuck up and not finish. He choked out “Your voice is driving me insane,” Feeling worse and worse about it with every second as he turned back to his computer, not looking at Neil’s face until Charlie suddenly burst in.  
“Ah, don’t mind Toddo here. He told us all last night that recently he’s been grinding his teeth. It’s giving him headaches,” Charlie said, winking at Todd as he took the cue, massaging the sides of his head as if Charlie’s awful russian accent was physically hurting him. He wasn’t sure it wasn’t, actually.  
“Jesus, Charlie, did you spend last night with a drug dealer girl, tripping acid?” Neil asked, seeming almost angry, protective.  
“What? No,” Charlie replied, almost forgetting his accent because of surprise. Neil turned to Todd for an explanation and he frantically wracked his brain.  
“Uh… Y’know, I’ve got dreams where I bleed,” he weakly offered up, refusing to look at the confused expression on Neil’s face and elated one on Charlie’s.  
“Are you telling me… that was a dream?” Neil responded, somewhere between infuriated, frustrated, and relieved.  
“Maybe,” Todd muttered under his breath “It’s me,” after Charlie gave him an expecting look. Fuck, this kid was going down, he swore to god.

**Author's Note:**

> criticism is of course appreciated, constructive or otherwise - tell me what you thought. i myself am not 100% sure what i think of this fic, i did (as mentioned in the tag) essentially write it while hallucinating, on a plane, based off of a fever dream, so? i rly have no way to judge whether it's good or not, at this point i just feel ties to its origin stories.
> 
> rambling over, hope you enjoyed, criticise me! thanks.


End file.
